Ex-Councilman John Cranley decisively defeated Vice Mayor Roxanne Qualls
as both Democratic mayoral candidates won the primary election and
advanced to the general election. With all precincts reporting, Cranley
got 55.9 percent of the vote and Qualls picked up 37.2 percent,
according to unofficial results from the Hamilton County Board of Elections.
But voter turnout for yesterday’s primary was especially low at 5.68
percent; in comparison, turnout was 15 percent during the primary held
on Sept. 11, 2001 — the day of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade
Center and Pentagon — and 21 percent in the 2005 mayoral primary. In the
past two mayoral races with primaries, whoever won the primary election
lost the general election. Voters will make the final choice for mayor
between Qualls and Cranley on Nov. 5.

Limitations imposed by Ohio lawmakers who oppose the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) have forced Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center to give up a $124,419 federal grant
that would have gone toward helping uninsured Ohioans navigate new
online marketplaces for health insurance. State legislators say the
regulations are supposed to clarify who qualifies as a “navigator” under
Obamacare to avoid potential abuses and conflicts of interest, but
Obamacare’s supporters say Republicans are just trying to make the law
more difficult to implement. Under Obamacare, participating
organizations are classified as navigators so they can help promote new
online marketplaces and tax subsidies to meet the law’s enrollment
goals. By losing its classification as a navigator, Cincinnati
Children’s Hospital can no longer help in that outreach effort.

After getting approval from county commissioners, the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden is asking voters to renew a levy that will appear as Issue 2 on the Nov. 5 ballot. The renewal wouldn’t
increase taxes from today’s rates, but it would keep property taxes $10
higher for every $100,000 of home value. It will go to the care,
feeding and maintenance of the zoo’s animals and botanical gardens. A
study from the University of Cincinnati Economic Center found the zoo had a $143 million impact on the Cincinnati area in 2012
— representing nearly 3.9 times the zoo’s total spending — and produced
1,700 jobs and nearly $1.6 million in tax revenue for Cincinnati and
Hamilton County.

State Rep. John Carney announced yesterday that he will run for state auditor.
Carney, a Democrat, will aim to replace Republican Dave Yost. He says
his run will “bring much-needed bipartisanship and transparency back to
our state government,” particularly by ending the one-party rule in many
state offices. Carney also took aim at JobsOhio, the privatized
development agency that has been mired in scandals in the past few
months. Yost split with his fellow Republicans when he pursued a full
audit of JobsOhio’s public and private funds, but Republican state
legislators cut the debate short by passing a law that made the agency
insusceptible to a full audit.

Two Ohio prison guards are suspended with pay
after the apparent suicide of Ariel Castro, the Cleveland man who was
convicted to a life sentence for holding three women captive and beating
and raping them. The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction
is investigating whether proper protocols were followed to avoid
Castro’s death.

Campaign contributions to Republican Gov. John Kasich and Democratic opponent Ed FitzGerald came from people the gubernatorial candidates appointed to government positions.
In the case of Kasich, the contributions are legal under state law. But
the $1,000 contribution to FitzGerald was returned because it was deemed illegal under a county ethics law
that FitzGerald helped establish as Cuyahoga County
executive. Still, Kasich’s campaign has
criticized FitzGerald for the illegal contribution, even though Kasich
isn’t applying the same standard to his own campaign.

The panel reviewing the state’s controversial facial recognition program will actually review the entire web-based, decade-old Ohio Law Enforcement Gateway
for proper protection protocols. Gov. John Kasich and the American
Civil Liberties Union are among two of many who criticized the facial
recognition program for potential breaches of privacy. The facial
recognition program allows police officers and civilian employees to use
a photo to search databases for names and contact information;
previously, law enforcement officials needed a name or address to search
such databases. The program was online for two months without an
independent review of its protocols and before the public was notified
of its existence.

Councilman collects more than 1,500 signatures

Councilman P.G. Sittenfeld has resolved his petition problems and will appear on the ballot for reelection this November.

“The (Hamilton County Board of Elections) confirmed last
night we have more than enough signatures to be placed on the ballot,”
Sittenfeld wrote in an email.

Sally Krisel, deputy director of the Board of Elections,
says the board has so far verified more than 900 signatures out of the
1,500 Sittenfeld turned in. Council candidates need 500 to get
on the ballot.

Sittenfeld was one of two candidates who faced petition problems
last week. In his case, petitions were found to have
crossed-out dates with corrections written on the back, which election officials
said might disqualify hundreds of signatures. In response, Sittenfeld renewed
his petition drive.

In a Facebook post this morning, Sittenfeld thanked a
93-year-old family friend, a former teacher, City Council candidates and
other volunteers for helping with the effort.

Mike Moroski, who was told his original batch of petitions fell 46 signatures short, wrote on Twitter that he turned in more than 1,100 signatures this morning. In a statement, Moroski thanked his team and participants
for helping him collect the signatures, which the Board of Elections will now need to verify.

The deadline for turning in City Council petitions is Aug. 22. Once the Board of Elections finishes verifying the numbers, it will release the full slate of candidates.

Attorney General Mike DeWine’s office is taking steps to secure Ohio’s facial recognition program against hackers after potential problems were found.
The program allows law enforcement and other public officials to use a
simple photo to search driver’s license and mugshot databases to get
contact information. In the past, officials needed a name or address to
search such databases. But the program apparently wasn’t following
proper security protocols and lacked typical requirements for passwords,
including a mix of upper- and lowercase letters, numbers and special
characters, according to The Cincinnati Enquirer. Previously, Gov. John Kasich compared the program’s potential for abuse to breaches of privacy made through federal surveillance programs such as the National Security Agency and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

A Cincinnati entrepreneur is aiming to innovate solar energy through his GoSun solar cooker, which will use solar collectors traditionally seen on solar panels to cook food. Patrick Sherwin launched a Kickstarter campaign
for the project on Sept. 5. He says his original interest in solar
energy came from a desire to move away from harmful fossil fuels that
are warming the planet, and this project gives him a chance to inspire a
small cultural shift.

Councilman Chris Seelbach will today introduce new legislation
that will help crack down on cellphone theft by making it more
difficult to sell stolen devices. The initiative will require the
hundreds of dealers who currently buy cellphones second-hand to get
licensed with the city and keep full records of the transaction,
including a serial number of the device, a photocopy of the seller’s ID
and other contact information. Seelbach has likened the requirements to
existing regulations for pawn shops. The hope is that cracking down on
dealers will make stolen cellphones more difficult to sell and less
lucrative to potential thieves.

Four finalists remain in the search for Cincinnati’s new police chief: acting Chief Paul Humphries; Jeffrey Blackwell, deputy chief of the
Columbus, Ohio, Police Department; Michael Dvorak, deputy chief of the
Mesa, Ariz., Police Department; and Jerry Speziale, deputy
superintendent of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Police.

Group cites low voter turnout, calls current system “absurd”

Following the Sept. 10 mayoral primary’s historically low
voter turnout, the Charter Committee, Cincinnati’s unofficial third
political party, is supporting efforts to reform how
the city elects its mayors.

“It is absurd that taxpayers paid $400,000 for a primary
yesterday that few people voted in, and that decided very little,”
said Mike Goldman, convener of the Charter Committee, in a statement.

Voter turnout for the Sept. 10 mayoral primary was a
dismal 5.68 percent. In comparison, turnout was at 15 percent for the
primary held on Sept. 11, 2001 — the day of the terrorist attacks on the
World Trade Center and Pentagon — and 21 percent for the 2005 primary.

The primary’s results also went exactly as most election watchers expected: Ex-Councilman John Cranley and Vice Mayor Roxanne Qualls overwhelmingly won, allowing them to move on to a direct face-off in the general election.

Prior to the Charter Committee’s announcement, WVXU reported
on a proposal from City Council candidate David Mann, who
was endorsed by the Charter Committee and Democratic Party, that would
place all eligible mayoral candidates on the ballot in the general
election and give the job to whoever gets more than 50 percent of the
vote. If no one received majority support, a runoff would ensue between the top two finishers two weeks later.

But the Charter Committee is unsure if Mann’s proposal
would work. Charter Committee spokesperson Sean Comer says it would have
to study the issue and make a final proposal after hearing opinions
from a much larger group of experts. Until then, the Charter Committee
isn’t giving specifics.

Under the current system, voters select from all eligible
mayoral candidates during a September primary. The two winners then move
on to the November ballot for a one-on-one election.

Comer says the Charter Committee is working on broad
reforms for Cincinnati’s charter, and the mayoral primary system will be
part of the final suggestions.

The Republican-controlled Ohio General Assembly yesterday
passed its state budget for the next two years, and Gov. John Kasich is
expected to sign the bill this weekend. Part of the budget is a tax plan
that would cut income taxes but raise sales and property taxes in a way
that Policy Matters Ohio, a left-leaning public policy think tank, says
would ultimately favor the state’s wealthiest.
On average, individuals in the top 1 percent would see their taxes fall by $6,083, or
0.7 percent, under the plan, while those in the bottom 20 percent would pay about
$12, or 0.1 percent, more in taxes, according to Policy Matters’
analysis.

The state budget also includes several anti-abortion measures: less funding for Planned Parenthood, more funding for
anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers, regulations that could be used
by the state health director to shut down abortion clinics and a
requirement for doctors to do an external ultrasound on a woman seeking
an abortion and inform her whether a heartbeat is detected. Republicans claim they’re protecting the sanctity of
human life, while abortion rights advocates are labeling the measures
an attack on women’s rights.

Cincinnati will have a mayoral primary on Sept. 10.
Five candidates vying for the highest elected position in the city:
Democrats Roxanne Qualls and John Cranley, Libertarian Jim Berns,
self-identified Republican Stacy Smith and Sandra Queen Noble. Qualls
and Cranley are widely seen as the favorites, with each candidate
splitting on issues like the parking lease and streetcar. Qualls supports the policies, while Cranley opposes both. A recent poll from the Cranley campaign found the race deadlocked, with Cranley and Qualls both getting 40 percent of the vote and the rest of polled voters claiming they’re undecided.

Elmwood Place’s speed cameras are being confiscated by the Hamilton County Sheriff Department. Judge Robert Ruehlman originally told
operating company Optotraffic to turn the cameras off, but when the company
didn’t listen, the judge ruled the cameras should be confiscated.

President Barack Obama signaled on Thursday that the federal government will extend marriage benefits to gay and lesbian couples in all states,
even those states that don’t allow same-sex marriage. That may mean a
gay couple in Ohio could get married in New York and Massachusetts and
still have their marriage counted at the federal level, but state
limitations would still remain. The administration’s plans follow a U.S.
Supreme Court ruling on Wednesday that struck down a federal ban on
same-sex marriage.

State legislators, particularly Republicans, have a lot of questions regarding Gov. John Kasich’s Medicaid expansion.
Legislators are worried the state won’t be able to opt out of the
expansion if the federal government reneges its funding promise, raising
potential financial hurdles. As part of Obamacare, the federal
government pays for 100 percent of the Medicaid expansion for the first
three years, and the share phases down to 90 percent after that.
Kasich’s budget includes a trigger — called a “circuit breaker” — in
case the federal government ever funds less than currently promised. A
study from the Health Policy Institute of Ohio found
the Medicaid expansion could insure nearly 500,000 people and generate
$1.4 billion by raising revenue and shifting funding burdens from the state to federal
government.

Vice Mayor Roxanne Qualls, a longtime supporter of the streetcar, is getting concerned
about some of the problems surrounding the project. In a memo to the
city manager, Qualls suggested putting the streetcar project through
“intensive value engineering” to bring the project’s budget and
timetable back in line — preferably in time for the 2015 Major League
Baseball All-Star Game. The memo was in response to streetcar
construction bids coming in $26 million to $43 million over budget — a
setback that could cause further delays or more funding problems.

With Councilman Chris Seelbach’s strong support, City Council passed a resolution urging the state government to maintain its energy efficiency standards.
State Sen. Bill Seitz, a Cincinnati Republican who chairs the Public
Utilities Committee, sent out a memo Feb. 1 that pledged to review the
state’s standards, causing much concern among environmental groups.

Tolls for the Brent Spence Bridge could be as low as $2,
according to financial consultants involved with the project. The tolls
will help pay for the massive rehabilitation project, which gained
national attention when President Barack Obama visited Cincinnati to support rebuilding the bridge.

State Democrats and Republicans have some questions
about the governor’s Ohio Turnpike plan. Some Democrats are concerned
the state government won’t actually freeze toll hikes at the rate of inflation for
EZPass users. Others are worried
about language in the bill. The plan leverages the Ohio Turnpike to fund a statewide construction program.

Dayton wants to help
illegal immigrants who are victims of crime. The Dayton City Commission
approved a $30,000 contract with a law firm to help potential
victims. CityBeatpreviously covered the recent struggles of children of illegal immigrants in Ohio.

Scientists engineered mice that can’t feel the cold. Certain people on CityBeat’s
staff would probably do anything for this superpower, but scientists
are probably going to use it to make better pain medication.

The Ohio Supreme Court upheld most of the controversial ballot language
for Issue 4 — the tea party-backed city charter amendment that would
semi-privatize Cincinnati’s pension system — but the court also
concluded that the Hamilton County Board of Elections must add language
about how much the city can contribute to the new retirement accounts.
The amendment would require future city employees to contribute to and
manage individual 401k-style retirement accounts, instead of placing
them under the current pension system in which the city pools pension
funds and manages the investments through an independent board. Voters
will make the final decision on the amendment on Nov. 5, although some
already voted early on ballots that included the full controversial
language. CityBeat analyzed the amendment — and how it could reduce benefits for city employees and raise costs for the city — in further detail here.

Mayoral candidate John Cranley says he would reject and doesn’t want
an endorsement from the Coalition Opposed to Additional Spending and
Taxes (COAST), a conservative group formed in 1999 with a history of
anti-LGBT causes. The response came just two days after COAST on Oct. 8
tweeted that it supported — but not endorsed — Cranley and council
candidates Amy Murray, Chris Smitherman and Charlie Winburn for a
“change of direction.” In response, Councilman Chris Seelbach,
Cincinnati’s first openly gay council member, called on all candidates
to reject COAST’s support because the conservative group’s most public
members previously opposed LGBT rights and backed efforts to make it
illegal for the city to deem gays and lesbians a protected class in
anti-discrimination statutes.

A historic preservation society in Ludlow, Ky., is attempting to block
a transitional housing facility that provides low-cost housing for
recovering addicts as they get their lives back in order. Even though
the facility’s two buildings aren’t designated as “historic,” the Ludlow
Historic Society wrote in an email that it’s “concerned because we are
striving to maintain and improve our housing stock in Ludlow, and
especially make the city a desirable place for young people to own their
homes and raise their families.” There’s not much information on the
ripple effect transitional housing has on communities, but a 2010 study found residents of transitional housing were achieving significant improvement or total abstinence.

Ohio officials are considering rules
that would allow oil and gas drillers to store fracking wastewater in
lagoons the size of football fields then recycle the wastewater for further use.
Fracking is a drilling technique in which millions of gallons of water,
chemicals and sand are pumped underground to unlock oil and gas
reserves, but the technique produces potentially toxic wastewater that
has to be deposited or recycled somewhere. CityBeat covered fracking and the environmental controversy surrounding it in further detail here.

A state senator proposed a bill
that attempts to keep the monthly per-member growth of Medicaid costs at
3 percent or lower, down from the current projections of 4.6 percent. But the bill doesn’t specify how it would reach the savings required and
instead calls on the legislature and state administration to find a
solution. The bill also doesn’t take up the federally funded Medicaid
expansion, which the Health Policy Institute of Ohio previously found
would generate $1.8 billion for the state and insure nearly half a
million Ohioans in the next decade.

A national reporting project will track the accessibility of Plan B, or the “morning-after pill,” now that emergency contraception is a court-upheld right for all women of childbearing age.

Although this year’s cuts are being undone, City Hall has been cutting resources
to the homeless, long-term unemployed, crime victims and casualties of
domestic abuse since 2004. Aid to those groups is part of human services
funding, which is supposed to receive 1.5 percent of the operating
budget but currently gets a quarter of that at 0.4 percent. To explain
the decade of cuts, the city administration typically points to citizen
surveys and meetings conducted as part of the priority-driven budgeting
process. But a CityBeat analysis of the demographics of the process found they were skewed in favor of the wealthiest
Cincinnatians and against low-income people, who benefit the most from
human services. For the agencies that receive funding, the history of cuts is even
more worrying as Cincinnati prepares for more budget gaps in the next
few years.

The state of Ohio will execute Billy Slagle on Aug. 7,
even though the prosecutor’s office behind the charges asked the Ohio
Parole Board to grant him clemency. The parole board denied the request,
and Gov. John Kasich last week declined to commute the sentence to life
in prison. Slagle was convicted in 1988 of murdering a 40-year-old
woman in a gruesome stabbing. His family says he was in an alcohol- and
drug-fueled haze at the time and has a history of problems at home, including
domestic abuse, that presents extenuating circumstances.

Two longshot mayoral candidates are really upset
about Cincinnati’s primary system: Independent Sandra “Queen” Noble
sent an F-bomb-laden email to debate organizers, and Libertarian Jim
Berns quit the race. Under the current primary system, multiple mayoral
candidates are allowed to run. But come Sept. 10, voters will select the
top two contenders in a primary. Those frontrunners will then face off
in a final election on Nov. 5 to pick who will take over City Hall on
Dec. 1. Noble and Berns claim the current system favors the two
frontrunners — Democrats Roxanne Qualls and John Cranley — by helping
them get the most exposure through televised debates after the primary
election.

Cranley has raised more money
than Qualls in the mayoral race, according to campaign finance reports
filed yesterday. Cranley has raised about $472,000, compared to $348,000
for Qualls. Cranley also has about $264,000 in the bank, while the
Qualls campaign has about $192,000 in hand.

Undocumented immigrants who were brought into the country as children will be eligible for in-state tuition
at Ohio public colleges, following a decision from the Ohio Board of
Regents. The change will save the students thousands of dollars at the
state’s public schools, which were charging exorbitant out-of-state and
international rates before. The undocumented immigrants qualify for
legal benefits because of an executive order signed by President Barack Obama earlier in the year
that prevents the federal government from prosecuting them. The order
falls short of actual legalization on the books, but it grants many benefits under state and federal law.

With Election Day tomorrow, today is the last chance to vote early. Find your voting location here.
Normal voting hours are 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., although some days are
extended. If you don’t vote early, you can still vote on Election Day
(Nov. 5). Check out CityBeat’s coverage and endorsements for the 2013 election here.

Judge Timothy Black ruled to continue
with a lawsuit that will decide whether same-sex marriages conducted in
other states should be acknowledged on Ohio’s death certificates. The
lawsuit originally appeared to matter only to a Cincinnati gay couple, but it’s been expanded to potentially reflect on the
rights of all gay couples in the state. Black is expected to give his
final ruling on the lawsuit in December. If Black rules in favor of
same-sex couples, it could be the latest step forward in an ongoing line
of progress for LGBT rights. Although same-sex marriage remains illegal
in Ohio, gay couples can now jointly file for federal taxes.

Local officials plan to host two workshops
to show business owners how the streetcar could benefit them. The
workshops are set for Nov. 14 at 10 a.m. and Nov. 18 at 6 p.m. Both will
be held on the third floor of the Public Library of Cincinnati and
Hamilton County at 800 Vine Street, downtown Cincinnati. Anyone interested can sign up here.